Monthly Archives: February 2021

When K. O’Shea’s death recalled C.S. Parnell’s life

(This is the first of two consecutive posts about Charles Stewart Parnell. Next, a guest post from a new Irish Academic Press collection. MH)

The deaths of former newsmakers, often years after they’ve faded from public attention, usually prompt reflections of their time in the spotlight and sometimes help contextualize contemporary issues. That’s what happened with the Feb. 5, 1921, passing of the former Katherine Wood, who first became Mrs. William O’Shea, then Mrs. Charles Stewart Parnell. She died a week after reaching age 76, having outlived her famous second husband by 30 years, her first by 16 years.

Mrs. O’Shea/Parnell

The adultery between Mrs. O’Shea and Parnell was exposed by the first husband’s 1889 divorce filing. The scandal isolated Parnell as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and stopped momentum toward Irish domestic autonomy, called home rule, which he had been building for years. The Irish party split over whether or not to support Parnell. Other home rule allies, including liberal British politicians and the Catholic Church hierarchy, quickly distanced themselves from the effort.

Mrs. Parnell’s death evoked “deplorably sad” memories for contemporaries of the “Parnell movement”, but little more than “passing attention from the younger generation of Irishmen,” the Freeman’s Journal wrote in February 1921.[1]“Death of Mrs. Parnell”, Freeman’s Journal, Feb. 7, 1921. The paper continued:

No more tragic episode is contained in the annals of human history than the dramatic fall of Ireland’s chief. He–as the uncrowned king–was leading his people triumphantly in demolishing the trenches of feudalism and ascendancy and heading straight for the goal of national freedom, when the lamentable intrigue with the lady whose death is just announced dashed the hopes of the Irish nation to the ground.

The Irish Independent cattily noted that “Mrs. Parnell was not Irish … she was of purely English descent, and her supposed Irish qualities had no more foundation than might be derived from her first marriage”[2]“Death of Mrs. Parnell, Widow of Irish Leader”, Irish Independent, Feb. 7, 1921., in 1867, to O’Shea, a Dublin-born captain in the British Army. Parnell was born in County Wicklow to an Anglo-Irish father and American mother. Both men were parliamentary colleagues during most of the 1880s.

Great split

Mr. Parnell

The divorce episode “led to the ruin of the Irish leader and to a great split in the Irish movement which completely demoralized it and dislocated Irish politics for many years,” wrote John Devoy, editor of The Gaelic American and a veteran of the Irish struggle from before the Parnell period. In a February 1921 analysis,[3]”The Tragic End of Charles Stewart Parnell“, The Gaelic American, Feb. 19, 1921. Devoy insisted there were “lessons for the present generation.”

He continued:

The really essential factor in the Irish Question is a United Irish Race. That was true in Parnell’s day and it is true now. A United Irish Race is treated with contempt and the English are encouraged to start secret intrigues and public propaganda to widen the breach. That was what occurred in the Parnell Split, and the same thing is going on today. And [Prime Minister] Lloyd George is doing it very skillfully. Knowing the Irish are divided, he is maneuvering to placate groups and sections, so as to detach them from the “extremists,” who really represented the whole Race a few months ago and represent its real spirit today. Had the unity of six months ago remained, he would be faced by the strength, resources and combined ability of the Race throughout the world and his pettifogging tactics would now be useless. Now the most important part of his propaganda–that aimed at the destruction of the Irish leaders in America–is carried on by Irishmen and the cost is defrayed by money collected for the Irish Republic.

The last phrase appears aimed at supporters of Sinn Féin leader Éamon de Valera, who returned to Ireland in December 1920 after an 18-month tour of America seeking U.S. political recognition and money for Irish independence. The establishment, Devoy-allied Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) and de Valera argued over the best way to win backing for Ireland from U.S. political parties at the summer 1920 presidential nominating conventions. Their feuding backfired, with no pledge from either the Republicans or Democrats. Before he sailed home, de Valera and his loyalists also split from FOIF and created the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR) to control money and the Irish narrative in America. 

Devoy went on:

When Irishmen want a split–and the fit takes them periodically–any old reason is good enough for a pretext. In Parnell’s time the pretext was zeal for morality, but the real reason was that the English wanted to get rid of the only Irishman who was capable of beating them … so they would have an easier job in dealing with lesser men … Today the pretext is zeal for the Irish Republic, and the method is to get rid of the real Republicans in America and put the movement in the hands of men who don’t care a thraneen for the Irish Republic–or the American Republic.

‘Moral delinquencies’

Devoy rehashed 30-year-old speculation of whether Mrs. O’Shea seduced Parnell of her own volition, or was “set on him” by the English. Either way, the Irish movement was ruined. The couple married in June 1891, but Parnell died that October, age 45. 

The widow became notorious as Kitty O’Shea, the forename variation also a slang term for a prostitute. She published a tell-all memoir in 1914 “in which she exposed to the vulgar world all the secrets, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of the great statesman she attracted, excluded those elements of sympathy that naturally go forth to a woman who, herself, was the victim of her own passion and thereby suffered heavily for her moral delinquencies,” the Freeman’s Journal noted.

The New York Herald reported the book “caused a brief sensation until the outbreak of the war eclipsed it in public attention.”[4]“Widow of Parnell Dies in England”, New York Herald, Feb. 6, 1921. A century later, Parnell remains familiar in Ireland, if obscure elsewhere; while the “purely English” Kitty O’Shea survives as the name of countless Irish pubs around the world.

See my American Reporting of Irish Independence series. 

References

References
↑1 “Death of Mrs. Parnell”, Freeman’s Journal, Feb. 7, 1921.
↑2 “Death of Mrs. Parnell, Widow of Irish Leader”, Irish Independent, Feb. 7, 1921.
↑3 ”The Tragic End of Charles Stewart Parnell“, The Gaelic American, Feb. 19, 1921.
↑4 “Widow of Parnell Dies in England”, New York Herald, Feb. 6, 1921.

American investigators visit Ireland, February 1921

American relief workers sailed to Ireland early in 1921 to assess the country’s humanitarian needs after two years of guerrilla fighting between republican separatists and the British state. The team’s Feb. 12 arrival and six-week, island-wide investigation coincided with the most violent period of the war.1 Their report of widespread hardships and economic devastation bolstered an American fundraising campaign that would send $5 million in relief to Ireland. It also created tensions between the U.S. and British governments.

This is the first of several articles about the American Committee for Relief in Ireland (ACRI), part of my American Reporting of Irish Independence centenary series. I’ll post the next installment in mid-March.

Clemens J. France of Seattle led the American relief delegation. A lawyer, he helped oversee development of the city’s port during the war years. In November 1920, as a progressive Farmer-Labor candidate, he lost a U.S. Senate campaign in Washington state. His brother, U.S. Sen. Joseph I. France, a Maryland Republican, supported the Irish cause. During a stop in London before crossing the Irish Sea to Dublin, Clemens France told the Irish Independent that American citizens were deeply interested in Ireland.

“There is no group of people in our country who are liked better than the Irish,” France said. “The Irishman has been a good citizen, and has played a great part in the development of our country. I have great affection for Irishmen, and that feeling is general in the States.”2

This image of the visiting group appeared in U.S. newspapers in February 1921, before and after the team sailed to Ireland. Walter Longstretch is not included.

Author and journalist Samuel Duff McCoy of New York City served as the delegation secretary and the lead writer of the report it would issue in April. Other members were connected to the American Friends Services Committee, a Quaker humanitarian organization founded in 1917 and said to give the group a neutral perspective. They included:

  • R. Barclay Spicer, Philadelphia, former editor of the Friends Intelligencer and head of the post-war Friends Reconstruction Unit in Europe;
  • Oren Wilbur, Greenwich, N.Y., a creamery and dairy farming expert who had attended the Friends’ 1919 conference in Dublin;
  • William Price, Philadelphia, an architect and builder involved in the post-war reconstruction of France; 
  • Philip W. Furnas, Indianapolis, Ind., a housing expert with experience in France;
  • John C. Baker, Everett, Pa., a farm implements and agricultural machinery expert, also experienced with post-war reconstruction; and
  • Walter C. Longstretch, Philadelphia, a lawyer and the group’s mystery man. His U.S. passport application noted his affiliation with ACRI and intention to travel to Ireland aboard a different ship days behind the others. He was not in the publicity photo widely published in U.S. newspapers, shown on this page, or a different photo of the group’s arrival in Dublin. Longstretch stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, the group’s headquarters, but left Ireland weeks before the others.3

American Committee & Commission

James G. Douglas, a Quaker, businessman, and Irish nationalist met the group in Dubin. Weeks earlier, Douglas established the Irish White Cross Society to partner with ACRI, the visitors’ sending organization. The creation of both groups became necessary when the American Red Cross, urged by U.S. and British government officials, declined to distribute aid to Ireland because of “grave risk of the Red Cross involving America in a national controversy foreign to our interests.”4

New York-based physician and Irish nationalist Dr. William Maloney formed the ACRI in December 1920 as conditions worsened in Ireland, including the mid-month burning of Cork city by the British military. Maloney also established the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland (ACCI) a few months earlier. The non-U.S. government investigative panel held hearings in Washington, D.C., from November 1920 through January 1921.

Ironically, the ACCI in November 1920 sought permission to send a five-member delegation to Ireland to conduct a first-hand assessment of conditions. British Ambassador to the United States Sir Auckland Geddes approved the trip but was soon reversed by his superiors in London. The British government decision drew a protest letter from 10 U.S. senators, including Joseph I. France, brother of the relief group leader–and ACCI member–who arrived in Ireland three months later.5

ACRI’s appeal published in U.S. newspapers during February 1921.

Maloney intended to utilize the ACCI witness testimony to benefit the ACRI fundraising effort,6 Nine of the commission witnesses were Irish immigrants naturalized as U.S. citizens who had returned home during 1920. These Irish diaspora accounts of “dangerous and unpleasant encounters with British authorities … gave credibility to the work of the commission … (and) remains one of the most important and most moving accounts of the suffering caused by the war in Ireland.”7

As its investigative delegation headed to Ireland, ACRI sought to collect more stories about suffering in Ireland through an appeal published in U.S. newspapers:8

Persons who have received letters from friends or family in Ireland which give a picture of present conditions are urged to send a copy of the letters, addressed to the publicity department of the ACRI. First-hand human interest material of this character will aid the committee greatly in its drive for funds to relieve the destitute women and children. 

The American relief team headquartered at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

ACRI received early donations and distributed money to the Irish White Cross before the official U.S. fundraising campaign began on St. Patrick’s Day, 1921. Days after the American team arrived in Ireland, Lord Mayor of Dublin Laurence O’Neill sent a cable to America to thank the Catholic Archdiocese of New York for its donation. He also praised the just-arrived ACRI team. “Their study of relief needs here, and reports to you, will be invaluable to industrial re-construction work and alleviation of economic suffering here,” he said,9

In pairs and other combinations, the Americans would visit nearly 100 cities and villages in 22 of Ireland’s 32 counties through the end of March. As with the ACCI hearings in Washington, British and U.S. government officials worried the ACRI mission would either intentionally or unintentionally help the Irish separatists. Their concerns would grow in the months ahead.

NEXT: “A Summons to Service,” the St. Patrick’s Day 1921 official launch of the Irish relief campaign in America.

Irish centenary series continue this week

Mulhall

Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Irish Ambassador to the United States Daniel Mulhall continue their separate lecture series on Ireland’s century-old revolutionary period. Both presentations can be accessed in virtual formats.

“Reflections on the War of Independence, 1919-1921”, second of the Embassy of Ireland USA’s “A Further Shore” series is 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern (Midnight, Ireland), Feb. 23. Register here.

The event will be moderated by Mary McCain, director of Irish Studies at DePaul University Chicago. In addition to Mulhall, other speakers include:

  • Dr. Mary McAuliffe, University College Dublin
  • Dr. Tim McMahon, Marquette University
  • Dr. Justin Dolan Stover, Idaho State University

Higgins

Higgins will present the second seminar of his Machnamh (Reflections) 100 series from Áras an Uachtaráin at 7 p.m. Ireland (2 p.m. U.S. Eastern) Feb. 25. Register here.

It will consider Europe after World War I, especially the British Empire’s attitudes and responses to events in Ireland. Higgins will focus on “the relationship between culture and empire, and how British cultural hegemony at the time attempted to shape and general cultural values in Ireland.”

Other participants include:

  • Professor John Horne, Trinity College Dublin
  • Dr. Marie Coleman, Queen’s University Belfast,
  • Dr. Niamh Gallagher, St. Catharine’s College Cambridge
  • Eunan O’Halpin, Trinity College Dublin
  • Professor Alvin Jackson, University of Edinburgh

Challenges of Public Commemoration, the first Machnamh 100 event, is available in audio and video recordings. Here’s a link to Was it for this, the first Further Shore webinar. 

My American Reporting of Irish Independence series offers more than 80 posts about US & Irish newspaper coverage of 1918-1921 events on both sides of the Atlantic, plus links to digitized Irish-American papers, reports & books.

Mrs. Brophy’s late husband

James Brophy, of Dublin or New York?

James Brophy died in Dublin on Feb. 12, 1921, a civilian casualty of a stray bullet in Ireland’s War of Independence. About the same time, an Irish immigrant of the same name disappeared from his family in New York City.

The odd coincidence offers a glimpse of early 20th century Irish lives on both sides of the Atlantic, when handwritten letters crossed at sea, and personal identification was more vague than today. After newspapers in Ireland and America reported the Dublin man’s death, Mrs. Brophy of New York urged U.S. diplomats and Irish police to investigate the case.

I wrote “Mrs. Brophy’s Late Husband” for The Irish Story in December 2016. It offers a unique view of Ireland’s revolutionary period and Irish America from the perspective of these smaller stories at the edges of century-old events.

Guest post: From Donoughmore, Co. Cork, to Altoona, Pa.

Donoughmore, County Cork, historian Gerard O’Rourke is the author of ‘Ancient Sweet Donoughmore: Life in an Irish Rural Parish to 1900.’ He is trying to reach people with Donoughmore ancestors who settled in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The story below offers a clue about the connection. Visit Gerard’s website, donoughmore.com, or reach him at gerorour@gmail.com. MH

***

Ireland’s Great Famine devastated Donoughmore, a rural parish 17 miles west northwest of Cork city. About 3,000 people died in Donoughmore from 1841 to 1851, which was 40 percent of the population at the time and roughly equal to the number living there today.

“There died of famine and fever from November 1846 to September 1847 over 1,400 of the people and one priest …. numbers remained unburied for over a fortnight, many were buried in ditches near their houses, many without coffins,” reads an entry in the Donoughmore parish Roman Catholic Baptismal register.

As in other parts of Ireland, this upheaval resulted in mass emigration. Many people from Donoughmore settled in Altoona, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. Among them was John Tuigg, who sailed to America in December 1849, just shy of age 30. He studied in St. Michael’s seminary in Pittsburgh, was ordained in 1850, and became missionary pastor to Altoona from 1853 to 1876, when he was consecrated as the third bishop of Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh’s first bishop, Michael O’Connor, also was a Corkman, born at Queenstown/Cobh. He administered the new Pittsburgh dioceses from 1843 to 1860. He was succeeded by Michael Domenec, originally from Spain, who was transferred to a new dioceses in the region when Tuigg was appointed to oversee Pittsburgh.

Bishop Tuigg

Upon his accession, Bishop Tuigg found that the diocese’s property was financially encumbered. With foresight, energy, and extraordinary ability he reformed the diocesan finances with measures that, though harsh, endorsed and substantiated his wisdom and supreme management.

The Altoona Times reported that “he combined to a rare degree the unusual qualities of firmness and gentleness. Strong and unyielding … he was kind and courteous to those who differed and tender and sympathetic to the weak and erring. He possessed astonishing executive abilities, as the schools, the convent, and the splendid church of St John bear witness. Those that listened to his fervent and lucid appeals ranked him among the foremost preachers of the state.”

Bishop Tuigg became ill in December 1882 and remained in poor health for the next seven years. He died Dec. 7, 1889, just six months after a record flood killed more than 2,200 people in Johnston, 45 miles southeast of Altoona and part of the Pittsburgh dioceses.

Bishop Tuigg’s death created a vast outpouring of grief and loss. Altoona Mayor Edmund H. Turner described him as “one of Altoona’s oldest and most honourable citizens.” He urged residents to suspend business during the funeral. Fire companies were directed to attend the service. Other organisations, both secular and Christian, such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, also paid tribute. The Altoona Tribune reported it was “the largest funeral ever held” in the city.

Bishop Tuigg was buried at St. John’s Cemetery in Altoona. He was succeeded by Richard Phelan of Ballyragget, County Kilkenny.

Whether Bishop Tuigg’s affiliation with Donoughmore influenced many people from this part of Ireland to settle in Altoona is a matter of debate. The fact that he was a native of the parish and held a prestigious position in America possibly attracted many of Donoughmore’s Catholics. Altoona’s thriving economy in the second half of the 19th century, a hub of the Pennsylvania Railroad, also would have lured these emigrants.

Your assistance with my research about the Donoughmore-Altoona connection is greatly appreciated.

Altoona in the late 19th century, with Pennsylvania Railroad shops in the foreground.